I was born in Denver, Colorado, on the westernmost edge of the Great Plains, and I’ve always responded to and aspired to a quality in poetry that I can only call “clarity.” Not that I’m interested in clarity at the expense of honest complexity; after all, light is not always benign: it blinds as often as it reveals, as anyone who’s grown up in my part of the world would know. That duality fascinates me and continues to shape my work. I’ve published 16 collections of poems over the years, most recently The Satire Lounge (just out from Folded Word),Marked Men, and Thread of the Real, and in September 2014 Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper appointed me to a four-year term as Colorado Poet Laureate. I teach for the University of Denver’s University College, where I also direct two graduate degree programs, and live with my wife Melody in the foothills southwest of Denver.

I point again. This one?(Tiny at the tether endof the Daddy’s long arm— her baby brother, maybe.)Is this the son?

No! Frowning.That’s a girl.

And this? (Up in the clouds.It looks like a Frisbee.)Is it a Frisbee?

She halfsnorts, half sighs.That’s—the girl’s—hat,then adds a few scribblesto clarify its hatness.

A hat, I say. In the sky,I say. Did someonethrow it there?

She donsher patience face.That’s her hatshe’s dreamin' about.

I admit: sometimeswonder takes me,and I see she’s a miraclehappening in secret— the way mist-laden airunlocks the colorsocculted in sunlight,lofting them outover the Earth,above our heads— as her sketch explains.

I tell her, The Daddylooks a little sad.

Her eyebrows knitaround a new thought.’Cause he don’t have a hat.But look at the flowers!

Pretty, I say. They’re allthe colors of the rainbow.

Now she grants a quick smile. That girlgrowed those rainbow flowersfor her Dad.